TheHarmfulSlutShamingofSZA

I came across SZA not too long ago. A good friend of mine had introduced me to her music and it was love at first sound; the mixture of her soothing voice paired with her deep-rooted lyrics. By the time I had discovered her, the 26-year-old had released 2 mix tapes and 1 EP. This year, she dropped her highly anticipated debut studio album, CTRL, which was praised by her fans, critics and music lovers.

Unfortunately, I was browsing Twitter recently and came across a post that was bashing SZA for sleeping with well-known men in the industry in order to get further ahead in her career.

The original poster then continued to slut shame SZA by "exposing" the fact that she's had sex with multiple men at the same time by posting a screen shot of a tweet that read, "SZA album so good it almost make you forget she got a train ran on her." He then followed up on this tweet with a screen grab of a tweet by ScHoolboy Q where he explained that he had refused to have her join him on tour because "she likes to fu*k too much."

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Whether or not any of these accusations are true does not mean that SZA is not a beautiful, intelligent and extremely talented artist. When people call her degrading names simply because she expresses her sexual desires and her sexuality through her music, they are contributing to rape culture. When they try to expose her and they demean her talents as an artist because she's slept with someone in the music industry, they are contributing to rape culture. When an artist uses a public platform to explain why he wouldn't go on tour with another artist by slut-shaming her, he is contributing to rape culture.

What hurt the most was seeing some of the replies because other women took advantage of the thread to further slut-shame SZA and call her out. Instead of helping uplift SZA during a time where she was getting scrutinized for owning her sexuality and doing what she wanted, these women were putting her down in order to gain the retweets and likes of misogynistic men.

SZA is new to the industry and she will definitely garner a lot more criticism, whether it's constructive or harmful. I simply hope that she continues to make beautiful music and she continues to write about whatever she experiences in life, whether it is sexual or not. If there's one thing that women around the world, including SZA, need to remember, it's the fact that no man should ever be allowed to tell us what to do with our bodies.

It's no secret that women have worked so hard to fight down the barriers of gender inequality and to be able to use their voices to speak up for what they want.

Rape culture..? How? She is blatantly expressing her servitude to misogynistic men by willingly sleeping with them to boost her career, instead of working for it and hopefully making it based on her own musical talent. She herself is telling women that the only way up is to ride as many dicks as it takes to get there. How is this is any way a positive message?

Rape culture..? How? She is blatantly expressing her servitude to misogynistic men by willingly sleeping with them to boost her career, instead of working for it and hopefully making it based on her own musical talent. She herself is telling women that the only way up is to ride as many dicks as it takes to get there. How is this is any way a positive message?

Rape Culture: The normalizing or trivializing of sexual assault and abuse.

"When an artist uses a public platform to explain why he wouldn't go on tour with another artist by slut-shaming her, he is contributing to rape culture".

His comments have nothing to do with assault, abuse, or rape. And ,if you mean women won't come forward to report an assault because they're worried men will shit talk them, then you need to get your shit together and so do those women. How about you teach them how not to be afraid of something so trivial as name-calling after they've just been attacked?

Rape Culture: The normalizing or trivializing of sexual assault and abuse.

"When an artist uses a public platform to explain why he wouldn't go on tour with another artist by slut-shaming her, he is contributing to rape culture".

His comments have nothing to do with assault, abuse, or rape. And ,if you mean women won't come forward to report an assault because they're worried men will shit talk them, then you need to get your shit together and so do those women. How about you teach them how not to be afraid of something so trivial as name-calling after they've just been attacked?

do you even know how many women are too scared to come forward about assault because of the way they'll get shamed for it? lmao not everyone can just "get their shit together". I'm genuinely confused as to why you're on a platform that aims to uplift and support women when you're just contributing to the slut shaming of SZA and insulting assault victims who fear speaking up.

you also clearly don't know what "contributing to rape culture" means.

do you even know how many women are too scared to come forward about assault because of the way they'll get shamed for it? lmao not everyone can just "get their shit together". I'm genuinely confused as to why you're on a platform that aims to uplift and support women when you're just contributing to the slut shaming of SZA and insulting assault victims who fear speaking up.

you also clearly don't know what "contributing to rape culture" means.

Clearly you missed the point of the article. This is really about double standards regarding sexuality. It would be extremely unusual for any male artist to refuse to tour with another male artist because he likes to enjoy sex with a variety of partners. Yet it's very common for female performers to be judged as somehow lacking if they feel that way. And this is not a new phenomenon. Google Mae West. This may be an eye opener.

BTW, although I'm not Catholic, I'm as chaste as your average modern nun. Just thought I'd add that to the mix.

Clearly you missed the point of the article. This is really about double standards regarding sexuality. It would be extremely unusual for any male artist to refuse to tour with another male artist because he likes to enjoy sex with a variety of partners. Yet it's very common for female performers to be judged as somehow lacking if they feel that way. And this is not a new phenomenon. Google Mae West. This may be an eye opener.

BTW, although I'm not Catholic, I'm as chaste as your average modern nun. Just thought I'd add that to the mix.

I'm Fatima (but I go by sealnation), an undergraduate student at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. I'm currently enrolled in communications and media studies, and I aim to work for a major media company upon graduating. I adore KimYe and consider myself a stan!
If you want me to write for [...]

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